The friend that was there all along
by Dizzo
Summary: Dean and Benny's very special friendship originated in Purgatory, but it didn't just happen overnight; it was a hard fought process of evolution. Vague spoilers for season 8, I guess.


THE FRIEND THAT WAS THERE ALL ALONG

Written for the Summergen challenge over on Livejournal. The prompt was 'Dean and Benny; BFF's in Purgatory'. I posted this a few weeks ago, but then discovered that as this was an anonymous challenge, I wasn't supposed to reveal it until after the challenge had closed, and so had to delete it. Whoops! My bad ...

Anyhoo, this is an extension of my drabble, Self-Sacrifice.

Dean and Benny's very special friendship originated in Purgatory, but it didn't just happen overnight; it was a hard fought process of evolution.

Disclaimer: Don't own them, just enjoy them.

xxxxx

Purgatory was many things. In Dean's blunt, no-nonsense opinion it was a friggin' craphole, but it was far more (or less) than that. It was cold, lonely, soul-destroying, dangerous and bleak. It was an unutterable nightmare; a miserable shadow world that broke its inhabitants in both mind and spirit.

Above all, it was a great equaliser.

Here in this desolate netherworld, skill and training counted for nothing; magic or supernatural powers counted for nothing, caution counted for nothing. Courage counted for nothing.

Worse still, an angel's grace counted for nothing.

With Castiel rendered powerless by the suffocating gloom of purgatory; a shock discovery which hadn't exactly improved Dean's assessment of the place, their first few weeks had been fraught with danger, chilling apprehension and a whole lot of near-death experiences (and that was even by Winchester standards).

Matters had improved a little when Benny appeared on the scene offering his assistance – for a price. Undead freak or not, he did a very fine job of covering Dean's ass if the need arose, so Dean was prepared to give respect where it was due. Ultimately, however, as Dean frequently reminded himself, Benny was a vampire. Dean's hunter instincts, honed by a lifetime of tragedy and hatred of all things Supernatural, jangled wildly with each act of kindness and protection that Benny performed. Dean was grateful, sure, but he still wasn't going to entrust his continued existence to a goddamn vampire; no way, no how.

Besides, Dean had never been one to rely on others to watch his back and keep him alive. That job was his and his alone. Relying on others got you killed, every decent hunter knew that, and he knew that even with Benny and the redundant angel in tow, ultimately all that stood between him and a violent and sudden demise were his wits.

One thing Dean knew he couldn't do was to let hunger and fatigue dull those wits. However, as time went on in purgatory, that was becoming more and more difficult to do. See? Complete and utter craphole.

Castiel was an angel, albeit a pretty helpless one at the moment, but one thing he did have in his favour was that his angelic being didn't need sleep. Nor did Benny – undeadness will tend to do that to a person. Dean, on the other hand, was human. This meant that all the needs and frailties of his human body had followed him into Purgatory, and he had to manage with catching a few minutes shut-eye whenever he felt himself succumbing to the kind of fatigue that left him physically incapable of going on.

He knew he could rely on Castiel to stand guard over him, watching him sleep and, yes, that was creepy as hell, but needs must when exploding Dick sends your ass to purgatory. He wasn't entirely sure how much of a bodyguard an unangelic Cas would be; the dude wasn't exactly Mr Universe (he barely qualified as Mr Mars' smallest moon), but he cared; and that had to be worth something.

Latterly, Benny would join Castiel in his vigils over the sleeping hunter. Yes, that made it doubly creepy, but the guy was built like a bull, and although he hated to admit it, Dean slept just a little bit sounder knowing that Benny was hovering over him. He had to hope that Castiel would be able to alert him and maybe even fight the vampire off should Benny decide to go postal and partake of a snack, but the fact was that Castiel had never voiced even the slightest concern for Dean's welfare where Benny was concerned.

Increasingly, the small part of Dean's mind that thought logically, and overrode the immutable bull-headed prejudice of the hunter was starting to believe that Benny was pretty cool as vampires went. He couldn't bring himself to say that his feeling went as far as trust, but it was way more than any other vamp had ever gotten from him.

But, as Dean constantly reminded himself, they weren't friends, oh no, not a chance. They were opposite ends of the Supernatural spectrum; polar opposites, night and day, chalk and cheese. They both wanted out of Purgatory; Benny had the knowledge and Dean had the means, so it was an arrangement of convenience for both of them; that's all it was.

Of course it was; so why then was Dean beginning to enjoy the time he and Benny spent together so much?

xxxxx

When Dean wasn't tired, he was hungry; miserably, gut-clenchingly hungry.

The menu in Purgatory wasn't exactly haute cuisine. Staying alive in Purgatory wasn't just about dodging slavering jaws and creeping evil. It was about scavenging, about subsisting on whatever meagre pickings you could find.

The fact that there wasn't a Biggerson's just over the horizon, another point that affirmed Purgatory's ever-growing 'craphole' status, meant that Dean found himself having to hunt to live. He'd fashioned a slingshot from his belt to try to bring down the occasional crow or bag himself one of the small furry things that occasionally scuttled around in the undergrowth. They weren't rats; not ever. Dean was adamant on that score; they were furry meatloaves with tails and feet.

However the whole exercise was very hit and miss, literally. He went hungry far more times than he ate.

With Cas not needing sustenance, and redefining the definition of hopeless when it came to killing anything that wasn't about to kill Dean, Dean was eventually reduced to accepting the exsanguinated corpses of – just about anything - left over from Benny's occasional hunting trips.

Dean could never have foreseen a day when he would be called upon to eat rugaru or chupacabra, and he was forced to admit that his respect for Benny was growing day by day; because if their blood tasted as crap as their bodies, then Benny really was earning props for not going after Dean's eight pints of rich sweet, human blood.

He tried hard not to think about the hard ridges of his ribs which were gradually forcing their way through the wasting wall of muscle that used to cover them so generously. In the same way he pretended not to notice the way his jeans were suddenly hanging loosely over his sunken stomach and protruding hipbones.

Suddenly his belt's multi-tasking days were over; slingshot, or pants round his ankles – those were the two rather stark choices Dean faced.

He knew where this particular story would end, but he sure as hell wasn't going to survive the horrors of Purgatory only to starve to death, not if he had anything to say on the matter. He needed to find a way out of this craphole (see, told you) fast, and hope that Benny wasn't giving him a steaming pile of bull when he talked about a portal back to the human world.

Yet, somehow, Dean never doubted that Benny was telling him the truth. There was something about the dude that was reassuringly genuine. It pissed Dean off royally, because Benny was a vampire – he obviously hadn't got the memo that said he was supposed to be a pointy-fanged, murderous asshole.

This is what Purgatory does to you, Dean decided; it forces you to put your fragile trust in the very things you've spent your entire life destroying.

It turns you into a different person.

xxxxx

When the tipping point happened, it happened very swiftly, and Dean was furious with himself. He had done exactly what he said he wouldn't do, and allowed his hunger and fatigue to dull his wits. It was only for a second, but that's all it took.

He disturbed the wendigo while it was stalking, and it struck out at him, carving three vicious gashes across his shoulder. He hadn't even sunk to his knees before Benny had lunged at it with a speed that only a supernatural creature could achieve and torn its head from its shoulders.

He was back at Dean's side in an instant, settling in next to Castiel to support his injured friend.

As the hot crimson stain crept across his heaving chest, Dean realised his only sources of help were an unangelic angel and a hungry vampire.

That just summed up his life in one sentence; he was screwed beyond belief.

That's when he saw Benny, looking down on him, surveying the bleeding wound, the concern in his vivid blue eyes warring with the pained desperation of curbing his natural instincts.

Dean heard the faint click as Benny's fangs tried to descend, but almost immediately heard the groan as Benny fought against himself to suppress that need.

"You'll be fine, brother," the vampire whispered, his whole body trembling with the effort of controlling himself as he patted Dean's uninjured shoulder.

And then Dean knew. All his doubts, all his deeply ingrained enmity evaporated; this was no partnership of mutual convenience. Suddenly, Dean could see the friend that had been there all along.

But more than that, he could see that this was a bond forged in blood, every bit as strong as a bond forged by blood.

Dean knew he hadn't just gained a friend; he'd gained a brother.

And it was awesome.

xxxxx

end


End file.
